ICE and Trade[XYZ] plan to bring Hyperliquid perps to the US: what's live and what isn't

On 29 October 2026, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Trade[XYZ] announced a definitive agreement to bring Trade[XYZ]'s Hyperliquid-based perpetual markets into a US-regulated framework, three days after Hyperliquid said Kraken's parent Payward intends to become the first CFTC-regulated deployer on its HIP-3 markets. Both plans depend on regulatory approvals that have not been granted, so US traders cannot trade these markets yet.

What happened

According to ICE's press release (29 October 2026), ICE will be the exclusive operator of Trade[XYZ]'s regulated markets and will build a new, dedicated retail market and clearing structure. Trade[XYZ] designs the products and Hyperliquid provides the underlying infrastructure. ICE is also making a strategic minority investment in Trade[XYZ] and has not disclosed the amount.

ICE's release does not name HIP-3, Hyperliquid's framework for builder-deployed perpetual markets. The Block (29 October 2026) reports that Hyperliquid provides the technology through HIP-3.

About a day later, ICE deleted its X post about the deal without giving a reason, while the press release stayed online (Bloomingbit, 31 October 2026). TokenPost (31 October 2026) reports that ICE then reissued the announcement, stressing that the market remains subject to regulatory approval. Nothing reported so far suggests the agreement has been cancelled.

Separately, on 26 October 2026 Hyperliquid said it intends for Payward to become the first CFTC-regulated HIP-3 deployer, through Payward's exchange and clearing house Bitnomial, with NinjaTrader Clearing carrying client accounts, subject to approval (The Block, 26 October 2026).

The details that matter

• Approvals are still pending. ICE says the plan needs regulatory approval to bring the markets into a US framework, approvals for the new market and clearing structure, approvals to support leveraged trading, and approval of the ICE-OKX joint venture's US broker-dealer and FCM subsidiaries (ICE).
• No launch date. Neither ICE nor Hyperliquid has given a date, and on 31 October ICE restated that the market remains subject to regulatory approval (TokenPost).
• Access through brokers. Under the ICE plan, KYC/AML-verified customers would reach the markets through futures commission merchants that become platform members, including through the ICE-OKX joint venture (ICE).
• Planned markets. ICE describes the retail market as covering crypto, equities, commodities, foreign exchange and other real-world assets. Today Trade[XYZ]'s markets are offered to eligible users outside the United States (ICE).
• Permissioned markets for Payward. The Payward route relies on HIP-3*, which Hyperliquid describes as an optional addition to HIP-3 that leaves existing markets unchanged. It lets a deployer keep an onchain allowlist, and traders would need to onboard with NinjaTrader and sit on both NinjaTrader's and Bitnomial's allowlists (crypto.news, 26 October 2026). The initial HIP-3* release is on testnet with preliminary specifications (Crypto Briefing, 3 September 2026).

The main misconception is that Hyperliquid is now "approved in the US". It is not. Both announcements describe plans, and the regulated versions would be new markets run by regulated firms, reached through a US broker account. They do not open the existing offshore Hyperliquid venue to US traders.

What it means for systematic traders

If you trade crypto perps systematically, nothing changes today. When regulated versions do launch, expect them to be separate venues with their own rules:

• Contract specifications, leverage limits, fees and funding may differ from the offshore markets, so results from one venue may not carry over to the other.
• Access through an FCM means account onboarding, margin rules and possibly different order types, all set by the broker.
• New, allowlisted markets may start with thinner books than the open venue, which raises the cost of slippage for strategies that trade often or in size.
• Trade[XYZ]'s current markets offer 24/7 access, but ICE has not published trading hours for the regulated version. If equity and commodity perps do trade outside exchange hours, they raise the same session and time-of-day questions as US stocks moving towards 23-hour trading.

What to do now

• Treat any offer to trade these "US Hyperliquid perps" today with caution, and check approvals on official ICE, Payward or regulator pages.
• Keep a record of how your current strategy performs on Hyperliquid, net of fees and funding, so you have a baseline to compare against a regulated venue later.
• Break that history down by session, hour and symbol, since venue changes tend to show up first in specific hours and markets.

Read more

Our Hyperliquid trade history export guide shows how to export your trades and funding to CSV, get past the row limits with the API, and work out real PnL. Tessera imports Hyperliquid trade history CSV files, and the slippage guide explains how to measure execution costs in that history. To see where your strategy loses money by session, hour, symbol and direction, the free Entry Analysis report works with trades from a supported broker, a platform export such as Hyperliquid, or any spreadsheet via the Custom CSV importer.